


If the World Was Ending (You'd Come Over, Right?)

by mslilylashes



Category: Sherlock (TV), Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms
Genre: End of the World, I Don't Even Know, I'm Sorry, M/M, Outer Space
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-11
Updated: 2020-03-11
Packaged: 2021-02-28 19:20:19
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,656
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23102350
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mslilylashes/pseuds/mslilylashes
Summary: If the world was ending, you'd come over, right? You'd come over and you'd stay the night? Would you love me for the hell of it? All our fears would be irrelevant. If the world was ending, you'd come over, right? The sky'd be falling while I'd hold you tight. No, there wouldn't be a reason why we would even have to say goodbye. If the world was ending, you'd come over... Right?(This is such nonsense, I can't even tag it without cringing!)
Relationships: Sherlock Holmes/John Watson
Comments: 4
Kudos: 24





	If the World Was Ending (You'd Come Over, Right?)

**Author's Note:**

> THIS IS ABSOLUTE DRECK! 
> 
> Oh my goodness, this is literal outer space slash fanfiction that seeped out of my weepy, sentimental, whisky-addled little brain, and I am so sorry.
> 
> Blame my youtube habit, and Irish whisky. I don't even know, but I am cringing so hard, and want to share this bit of nonsense with you all.
> 
> Xx lilylashes
> 
> Inspired by: https://youtu.be/KJJUiwHTeQI

The news arrives like Sherlock always expected it would — via Mycroft.

He actually has the misfortune to be in Mycroft’s presence when he receives the call — coerced dinner at the Diogenes at which Sherlock purposefully orders fruit tea with too much sugar for the simple fact that it drives his brother mad. Mycroft shows his displeasure with the slightest downward quirk of his mouth, and narrowing of his eyes, but makes no comment. Then his phone rings.

With a world-weary sigh, as though thoroughly resigned to the fact that the world appears to be conspiring with his little brother to make that particular moment as vexing as possible, he excuses himself to the lobby to answer the call — heaven, hell, or the purgatory that was the Diogenes club forbid that he do something so low brow as to answer his phone at the table.

Sherlock watches him from through the glass French doors. Sees his brother’s eyes widen, his jaw clench. Sees his hands ball into fists. Sees him end the call, then reenter the dining room like a man walking to his doom.

Mycroft sits back down at the table, replaces his napkin in his lap with a flourish, stares morosely at his brother, then opens his mouth.

It’s the end of the world, he says. The end of the bloody world, and there’s not a damn thing we can do about it.

~*~

It helps that Sherlock has deleted the solar system. It makes the incoming asteroid seem that much more fanciful, seeing as Sherlock does not know an asteroid from an azalea.

The thing about giant hunks of outer space rock hurtling towards the earth is that it can’t be curtailed by red tape; can’t be stalled by bureaucracy. Mycroft — for the first time in his life — is completely powerless.

That doesn’t mean he doesn’t try. He hosts conference call after conference call, searching for a solution. He meets with the greatest minds from the greatest universities, uses his considerable reach to find philosophers and astronomers — even _astrologists_ _—_ from everywhere from Italy, China, even the Amazon. Nothing helps. There is no solution.

The Americans interject every few days with new findings from NASA, who assure everyone they are closely monitoring the situation, but Sherlock scoffs, because how closely can they possibly monitor a situation that is happening between Venus and Earth? Until then, he’d only known Venus to be the patron saint of prostitutes.

The best mathematicians in the country tell Mycroft there are approximately three weeks before impact. He makes them all sign NDAs, and sends them on their way.

~*~

Another full week passes before a solution is found… And it is such a terrible solution that Mycroft almost regrets its discovery.

It is, in fact, a short story from a Grade 7 student called Giles McGinty that holds the solution. Giles had written an essay titled ‘HOW I SAVED THE WORLD AND TOUCHED THE SKY’ after the Star Trek episode ‘FOR THE WORLD IS HOLLOW AND I TOUCHED THE SKY’, but instead of discovering the asteroid to be a spaceship in disguise, Spaceman Giles just plowed his rocket into the asteroid, leapt from his spaceship, and happened to be picked up by another passing spaceship. Giles had been given a grade of Below Expected, and a note in red pen to read a book and turn off the telly.

It is because of this sub-standard fictional essay that Mycroft begins exploring options on direct interference with the asteroid rather than avoidance, and connects with a nuclear physicist from Tokyo who believes that a collision between a large enough mass and the incoming asteroid just might minimise the impact and subsequent destruction of planet Earth. Mycroft signs off of the video call, and sits in his office for a long while.

~*~

Another day passes before Sherlock breaks into Mycroft’s office, in search of mischief as usual, thinking that if the world is ending, he might as well read _all_ the unredacted case files on every subject under the sun while they are, in fact, still _under_ the sun, when he sees John’s file sat at the top of a small stack left out carelessly right on Mycroft’s desk. Curiously, he flips the cover open, and immediately feels as though he might faint.

John is being selected for a suicide mission to save the bloody planet. _What the actual fuck._

Sherlock sifts through Mycroft’s drawers, and finds scraps of encoded notes that shows John is at the top of his shortlist of people with military background, strong moral character, and the aptitude to grasp a flight system in a very short amount of time. Mycroft needs someone he believes could both successfully complete the mission, and keep it secret from the general public to prevent mass panic. Sherlock sees his point, but _why the fuck John_.

Well, it’s not going to happen, that’s all there is to it. Sherlock has died three times now for John; he’s sure as hell going to make sure it wasn’t in vain.

~*~

‘No.’

‘What the hell do you mean no, Mycroft, it’s not up to you,’ Sherlock says blandly.

‘I _mean,_ brother mine, that you would require my express authorisation, and I assure you, you will not get it,’ Mycroft replies calmly.

Sherlock smiles, and it’s a terrifying thing. ‘I think you would find that between other members of the cabinet, not to mention the information I currently possess and might just have to publish if I don't get exactly what I want, I have enough support to supersede your approval, _brother mine_.’ His teeth flash, and Mycroft sees something feral in his eyes.

‘ _Sherlock-_ ,’ is all he can manage, but his brother interrupts.

‘ _He has a child, Mycroft_ ,’ Sherlock interrupts, ‘He has a child, he lost his wife, and he can do a hell of a lot more good alive than dead. Whereas _I_ ,’ he says with a bit of a swagger, ‘Have never done a damn thing worth doing. I solve the murders of the dead, Mycroft. John Watson saves the lives of the living. Who do you think has a bigger impact?’

Mycroft doesn’t answer, because he can’t deny the simple logic of his brother’s words, and also he can’t find a way to articulate that it’s Sherlock’s _brain_ rather than his actions that has made all the difference in the world, but somehow that just sounds callous in his mind, so he says nothing at all.

~*~

In the end, it’s Sherlock’s way. Always his way.

~*~

It’s a week and a day till impact, and Sherlock has been vetted, trained, and analysed six ways from Sunday to make sure he is mentally and physically fit enough for this mission. After Serbia, what the hell else matters.

For the last week, Mycroft had people working literally around the clock to make a large enough, fast enough space station. It’s schematics and physics that would never work for sustainable space travel, but luckily, this trip is not meant to be sustainable. It’s a one-man one-way journey.

Sherlock jokes that he is the perfect person for the mission, because his ‘massive intellect’ more than makes up for the lack of crewmen.

 _I’m going to outer space_ , he thinks idly several times a day. The thing other men have only dreamt of.

~*~

It’s the night before liftoff, and Sherlock is enjoying his last evening on Earth. He doesn’t tell anyone the plan for tomorrow; truly, even if he had wanted to share it, no one would ever believe him. He chats with Mrs Hudson, makes plans with Molly to examine a diseased kidney the following week, solves a fantastical case for Lestrade involving a deli worker who moonlights as a strangler, and settles into 221B with takeaway fish and chips and crap telly.

The only thing missing is John.

 _Fuck it_ , Sherlock thinks, and texts John to come at once, if or if not convenient, because if not now, then when.

John shows up within the hour, slightly out of breath, and altogether beautiful.

Sherlock just stares at him as he bursts through the door.

John’s face is more lined than that day he came limping into the lab at Barts. His hair is mostly silver, and he has an air of hard-won wisdom. His grief has been permanently etched into his face, but somehow this makes him even more perfect. 

They are old(er) men now, in their forties, and Sherlock momentarily laments the fact that he will never get the chance to see John as an _old_ man, bent with age, belligerent and entitled in the way geriatrics who have lived through hardships tend to be, and he immediately dismisses this regret, because if he thinks too hard on it, he will never be able to leave in the morning.

‘Sherlock!’ John exclaims as he bounds in the door, landing a bit too hard on his bad leg, but refusing to acknowledge it.

‘John,’ Sherlock replies in the same way he always regards him, though this time is truly a struggle. That has been his lifeline for years — _help_ , _look!_ , _hello_ , _I love you —_ all compacted into that single syllable.

‘What’s on? Are you alright?’ John demands, breathless.

Sherlock doesn’t answer right away, he just stares for a moment longer from his vantage point of his desk, and then… He descends. He launches himself at John, hands grabbing for him, and John — amazing, brilliant, wonderful John — freezes for a moment in surprise, then immerses himself into the embrace with a vigour.

And then… They collide. Like ships that have passed in the night for too long. Like lorries crashing. Like a fucking asteroid hitting a shooting star. And it is wonderful.

They are a clash of teeth and hands and mouths, and they tumble onto the sofa, the door still wide open, and the faint sounds of the street below bleeding into the otherwise silent flat. 

_I’ve waited for this for forever_ , Sherlock thinks as he pushes John back, and sinks to his knees, keeping his eyes fixed on John as he takes him in his mouth, and _sucks._

 _Oh god, yes_ , John’s eyes say, before he throws his head back against the sofa, and lets himself get lost in Sherlock.

They make it to Sherlock’s room, having the momentary clarity to slam the door shut as they pass, and the love they make is slow and mournful and sublime, as if they might have all the time in the world. Sherlock’s eyes fill with tears because he knows this is all they can ever have. John’s, because of all the time they have wasted.

They fall into a peaceful sleep, because for that moment, and that moment only, the world is exactly as it should be.

~*~

Morning comes too quickly. Sherlock wakes when the sky is still blue-grey stillness. It would be a sombre occasion, but John is still in his bed, and he is still feeling that thoroughly-shagged pleasant ache below the waist that lets him know that the night before really happened. He will hold onto those memories for the rest of his life, however short that may be.

He’s written letters, to John, but also to Mrs Hudson, Lestrade, Molly, even Mycroft. It’s the next-to-last thing he can do for everyone he loves.

And then, there’s nothing more to it, than to do it. He dresses in his best suit, and winds his favourite blue scarf around his neck. He swings his coat around his shoulders, pops the collar, and even grabs the death-frisbee hat. He slinks back to his room, presses a final kiss John’s hair, and then he is gone.

~*~

Mycroft meets him at the airfield. They have grounded all flights, and taken every conceivable precaution to keep the public from the premises. The brothers say nothing, because there are no words that could ease this moment, but right before Sherlock boards, he clasps Mycroft’s hand, and they stare into each other’s eyes for a long moment. Sherlock only looks away when he sees his brother’s chin begin to tremble.

‘To the very best of times, brother mine,’ he says, and then he is gone.

~*~

John wakes a few hours later to a flat so still that he knows Sherlock has run off somewhere in a hurry. The bed is cold. He sighs, finds his clothes, and checks his mobile, hoping that Sherlock might have left some sort of clue for where he took off to so quickly, but only the time flashes up at him. He frowns.

He makes his way out to the kitchen, and finds five envelopes neatly fanned out across the table, one of which has his name on it. He picks it up, about to slide his finger under the seal to open it, when the flat seems to shake.

John runs outside, and looks up to see a faint cloud of some sort of dust or smoke far up in the sky. It’s just the tiniest pinprick of destruction; but somehow the impact resonates like a sound wave. He frowns in confusion, not quite sure what it is he just witnessed. It’s then that his mobile rings.

~*~

It’s the second time John has buried Sherlock, and the coffin is just as empty as it was the first time, but now there is no hope that Sherlock might have fucked off to adventures unknown to play the hero. There is evidence, in the way of transmissions, up until the moment of impact. This time, there will be no miracle resurrection.

As the pastor drones on about sacrifice, and servitude, and possibly some sort of metaphor for Jesus, John thinks back to the story Sherlock told him about Irene Adler asking if it was the end of the world, the very last night, if he would have dinner with her. He supposes he should feel grateful that at the end of the world, Sherlock chose to spend his very last night with John, but this does nothing to satiate the howling void in his chest.

More words, a few songs, and then it is over. The mourners depart, and John is left, holding Rosie to his chest. Lestrade nods at him, Mrs Hudson tearfully gives him space, and then he is alone, faced with the hard black granite headstone for a second time. He wonders briefly if they managed to changed the year of death, or if this is a new, but identical grave marker.

He slips his hand into his jacket pocket, and pulls out a battered envelope, still sealed. He hadn’t been able to face opening it after the call from Mycroft letting him know it was all over, but… If not now, then when.

He reads the words, standing over Sherlock’s empty grave, his daughter in his arms, and he weeps.

~*~

_John,_

_By the time you read this… Well, I suppose you know what has happened. I would like to think you would believe me if I said there was no other way, but I also know there is no reason for you to do so._

_Please know that I have valued our friendship above all else. I have loved you essentially from the day I met you, something I never believed I was capable of. Again, I hope you will believe me, despite every reason I have ever given you to think the opposite. You have made the most profound impact on my life, and if I were the type of person to say thank you, I would. I was so alone, and I owe you so much. The world was ending, and you did, in fact, come over._

_Be well, and take comfort in the fact that I now have a profound understanding of the solar system. The Earht does not, in fact, go ‘round and ‘round the garden like a teddy bear._

_Give my regards to Rosie. I love you._

_Sherlock_


End file.
